Kiev-Pechersk Patericon in the Manuscript Tradition of Siberian Old Believers of the Second Half of the 19th Century

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the text of the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon in the manuscript miscellanea of the 19^th century that were in use in Siberia. The study of the late manuscript tradition, which is usually outside the close attention of researchers, is an important and urgent task that requires the use of as many copies as possible. Miscellanea compiled among Siberian Old Believers in the 19^th century demonstrate a new stage in the literary history of the book, when the Patericon breaks down into separate episodes about the monks of the Kievan Caves Monastery, which are transformed into their vitae. Despite the fact that after the 17^th century the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon was practically not copied in its entirety (today only a few copies of the Patericon from the 18^th and 19^th centuries are known), it remained in the Siberian reading repertoire. This is confirmed by the discovery of Siberian archaeographers, which is the main focus of this article – the Old Believer manuscript Q.II.4. late 19^th century from the E.I. Dergacheva-Skop Ancient Repository of the State Public Scientific and Technological Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This manuscript is part of the so-called Tomsk collection of the Ancient Repository. The Tomsk manuscript was unknown to researchers of the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon and had not been mentioned previously in any typological- textual analysis of copies of the book. The manuscript is a collection, in addition to the Patericon it includes a text entitled "On the End of the World and the Day of Judgement", which is the last, thirtieth chapter of the "Book of Faith" often quoted by Old Believers. As a result of the textual analysis of the Patericon in the Tomsk manuscript, it is concluded that the copy of the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon, dating back to the end of the 19^th century, accurately conveys the text of the 15^th century, namely the II-Kassian edition of the book of 1462.